


Trantor and Earth

by Zurrunba



Category: Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zurrunba/pseuds/Zurrunba
Summary: Kera, a student of the Second Foundation on Trantor, is asked by a counselor to find anything she can about the origin of the human race, and is surprised with what she finds. (This story takes place in the time period discussed in the book "Foundation's Edge". This has a slight tweak to it).
Kudos: 1





	Trantor and Earth

“I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t believe what?”

“Earth doesn’t exist.”

The statement thrown out there stopped Tyli in her casual search through some records and turned to the one next to her. 

“What are you talking about, Kera? I know there are many out there that think Earth is a fable, but here at the University on Trantor we are encouraged to keep an open mind.”

Kera glanced at the other with an annoyed expression. “I’m not talking about stories and book films on the subject that deny its existence. I mean that the Galactic Library has zero references to Earth.”

Tyli, startled out of her own broodings, suddenly stopped what she was doing and glanced over at the other’s screen. “What do you mean there’s nothing there? Of course, there is.”

Pointing at her screen, Kera encourage the other to look. When Tyli looked at the screen it read:

0 results found  
New Search?

Tyli said, “That makes no sense. Who hasn’t heard of Earth? There should at least be information about human traditions.” Pushing Kera slightly to the side she started typing into the computer. “What made you start looking for information on Earth, anyway? Research for one of your papers?”

That would be a stretch. Her final work at the university was on the Prime Radiant, nothing to do with history, generally speaking. Best not to get into some kind of argument with this sectional librarian.

“Counselor Gendibal asked me to look up everything I could that deals with Earth. Apparently, a scholar from Terminus was on his way here on some strange quest to find it before moving on elsewhere. The counselor wanted me to give him examples of some of the things we have here.”

“What kind of searches did you make?”

That kind of question was a little insulting. Nobody got as far as Kera did without knowing how to navigate the library databases. But she didn’t want to get into an argument over bruised egos. 

“I’ve looked in the general history section, I’ve looked at space exploration, I’ve looked in folklore, archaeology, general science; nothing is there about Earth.”

Time and again Tyli typed in different search parameters, each time coming up with zero results. Some things about space exploration said something about Spacer worlds or colonizing of planets, but Earth never showed up. Kera had to admit that the librarian was using a lot more key words and terms that she hadn’t thought of. Here and there something came up that looked like it could be a book film or article on the matter, but Earth itself never came up. When the use of her special access as a librarian attempted to find anything in special collections failed to find anything, she was clearly stumped.

Tyli stared at the screen, baffled. The library had been slowly built up over the millennia with both the rise and the fall of the Galactic Empire. It had grown more and more as time went by; each time the librarians had kept it organized. It was the Second Foundation that had kept it from being destroyed in the Great Sack. Since then, they’d prided themselves on keeping it run efficiently for those who consulted it.

“When was the last time you’ve been in the vaults below?” Tyli asked, her eyes still stuck on the screen.

“A long time,” Kera admitted. “Usually, we just place an order and someone brings what we want up. That way fewer people can do damage to any sensitive materials.”

“I think it might be a good time for another visit.”

“What for?” Kera asked, baffled.

“I want to do a physical search of the items there, and I’d like to keep our purpose as tight lipped as possible.”

An actually search of the physical materials by hand? That would take a good deal of time, and she had other work she had to do. But then, she had promised the counselor that she’d bring to him anything that she could find about Earth. Likely he might recommend doing exactly what Tyli was suggesting before accepting what Kera feared had happened.

Reluctantly she rose and followed the librarian to the lift. This probably wasn’t a good time to tell her that she was a little claustrophobic, and she’d never been comfortable being that deep underground. Tyli likely wouldn’t care and would tell her to stiffen up. It was hard to believe that just a couple centuries before this the entire planet was covered with metallic structures like caves. What was below the library was a remnant of that, well kept up for the purposes of the university. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the lift.

The ride wasn’t long, but wasn’t pleasant. Kera was glad to finally get off to keep from focusing on the deep underground nature of her new surroundings. Focus on the job at hand. She’d be down here a while as they went through each section to search for materials that neither of them quite knew how to identify.

The first place they checked was the history section. Logical. It was a very large expansive section that had a lot of sub-groups. In order to cover more ground, the two separated, Tyli to search in ancient human civilization, Kera to look under space exploration. Kera’s designated section was smaller, so if there was anything to be found she should discover any discrepancies first.

Most of what she found had to do with the early expansions across the galaxy that supposedly started in many different places. It was easy to find things that dealt with the build up and finally the colonization of Trantor. Sifting through some other things she saw items about early engineering works and the development into most sophisticated modes of travel.

Here she stopped. Several book films were talking about early forms of space travel, but any references to the people and places were absent. Quickly she scoured through the different volumes, checking each call number and data signature. Here and there some of the numbers didn’t make sense. When going through old catalogues or encyclopedia type items some numbers looked to be skipped, or somethings appeared to be rearranged into some incomprehensible order. 

A chilling feeling came over her. To a casual observer these things might be ignored, but she’d been involved in the cataloguing work over the past few years (through the computer databases on the surface) and the way this looked would be considered completely disorganized and unacceptable; yet here it was. There were at least four places where one would expect to find something referring to Earth in space exploration, but there was no such film or data file. Someone had to’ve gone in and changed it. But who could possibly do that unnoticed?

Swiftly she hurried to the folklore section. This was an even larger section, as the gathering of this information would be done on many planets throughout the galaxy before being brought here. Knowing a little bit more what to look for, she found similar problems. Because every planet had its own folk traditions it would take a little longer to determine which books would have such things. Ignoring the single planetary sections, she decided to do it by works covering different sectors. One by one each sector was checked, and each resulted in similar findings to those in the space exploration areas. Again, some subgroups and numbers looked to be skipped or irregularly condensed. Being so focused on this she didn’t notice when Tyli showed up behind her.

Kera nearly jumped when the librarian said her name. When she turned, the look on Tyli’s face was ashen. Clearly the librarian had encountered something her organized life considered unthinkable.

“I take it the other sections had the same result as mine,” Kera said. 

When the other nodded, Kera continued, “I guess I know what I’ll have to tell the counselor, then. There are no references to Earth in the library, but at one point there was. I hope he won’t think I failed because I’m incompetent.”  
“I’ll back you up,” Tyli said. “But we tell nobody else. If the council wishes to do something, I’ll let them decide, but nobody is to know that there are things missing from the library.”

Kera bit her lip, then nodded. As much as she hated the idea, she had to admit that something like this would cause a scare throughout the university. She couldn’t think of what they could do about it. Finally, the two returned to the lift, then to the main level; then they headed for the offices. Best to get this over with and leave it to someone else to straighten out.


End file.
